Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) (14 page)

Come inside

Harper flattened her palm over her heart
when she read Levi’s message. It was racing so fast she actually
feared she might be on the verge of a medical emergency.

“
Harper
,” Ron repeated himself. He was calling her by her first name
now – that meant he was serious. Or scared. Looking into the
rearview mirror, Harper caught her reflection. Her face was nearly
paper white. “Harper, what’s wrong? Do you need to go to the
hospital?”

“
No,” she managed to choke
the word out. “Just drive me anywhere else. Fast.”

The shiny, black F-150 was close to
convincing Harper that her first car would be a pickup truck, too.
She had always imagined she’d drive an Audi like her mother but as
she and Levi cruised toward Sedona in his monster of a car, she was
suddenly certain she was meant to be a Ford girl.

After leaving Zoe’s house, their
conversation had flowed as if nothing strange had happened between
them the night before – as if they were simply two friends who had
known each other for ages, which was nice.

For the most part. It was also kind of
torturous. Levi looked good. Somehow, despite being fully clothed,
he looked better than he had the night before. Harper couldn’t help
feeling occasionally breathless when she realized that it was
really just the two of them, alone on the road, each other’s only
company. The breathlessness only worsened when Harper let herself
study him – his perfect jaw or tattooed forearm draped over the
steering wheel. The adorable way his eyes crinkled when he noticed
a dog in some other car’s passenger seat. More than the sights
along their drive, Harper anticipated their first stop. She craved
the prospect of drinking in a hotel room with him – and whatever
would happen as a result of the drinking.

But to her massive disappointment, their
first night at a hotel consisted of separate, sober sleep.

Tired from hiking among the red rocks in
Sedona, they’d stopped at the first hotel they spotted, Levi
accepting the first room the front desk offered – a suite with two
queen-sized beds. That night, Harper had emerged from the bathroom
to see Levi already sprawled out on one of them, asleep in just his
jeans. Crawling into bed with him when there was another one made
Harper feel totally creepy, so she didn’t do it.

In Phoenix, she tried to dismiss their lack
of hooking up to the fact that they’d gotten blackout drunk on the
cheap liquor he’d purchased from a dilapidated roadside store.

“
Christ, woman,” Levi had
laughed when he drunkenly walked in on her in the bathroom, as she
peeled off the wet clothes she’d spilled vodka on. Rather than
excuse himself though, he had leaned against the doorframe, his
sleepy eyes watching her until he suddenly blinked, shaking his
head. “Fuck,” he muttered before turning on his heel and hastily
shutting the door for her. As had been the case in Phoenix, she had
walked out of the bathroom to find him already passed out. But
she’d passed out quickly that night too.

It wasn’t until New Mexico that Harper
realized that he had no intention of touching her. Not in that way,
at least. He had touched her plenty when trying to get her
comfortable on the back of their motorcycle, which he had used to
ride Sandia Crest. Cruising the winding path below an indigo sky,
they’d taken about an hour to reach the peak of the mountains, five
thousand feet above Albuquerque. A city girl through and through,
Harper wasn’t sure she had ever felt such adrenaline – between
riding on the back of the chopper and being so elevated above the
city, she could feel her heart pounding, close to bursting with
excitement. It was probably that thrill that sparked her to suggest
she drive the bike for their ride back down.

“
You’re kidding, right? I
was hoping to get back down there alive,” Levi said, plucking her
helmet off her head. As put off as he was by her suggestion, he
couldn’t seem to help laughing as he watched her grin so
brilliantly, still breathless with excitement.

“
I bet I can do it,”
Harper panted, biting her lower lip when Levi ran his fingers
through her tousled hair.

“
I’m glad you think you
can,” he laughed, brushing a windblown lock from her face. She
swatted his hand away.

“
Don’t patronize me, I
know I can do it. I just need you to teach me the
basics.”

“
Of riding a bike? It’s
not a fucking tricycle, Harper, it’s a custom chopper that I don’t
want you to crash.”

Much to Levi’s amusement, Harper wound up
settling for sitting on the bike alone for a minute, an almost
goofy grin on her face as she wrapped her fingers around the
handlebars. For her own entertainment, she imagined zooming away
without Levi. She imagined taking the bike somewhere and starting
some life as another girl without a famous family or even a dollar
to her name. It was fun to just think about it for a second. She’d
never have to see her fake classmates from The Cabot School or
force another smile at some Upper East Side mom who’d probably been
trash talking her family a second ago. She could do what one of the
crazy fortunetellers in Sedona had told her she was destined for –
spiritual healing.

Harper laughed, only snapped out of her
fantasy by the strong arms wrapping around her waist.

“
Was that a
giggle
I just heard?”
Levi’s chuckle was close to her right ear. She felt the front of
his body press against her back as he took the seat behind her, his
breath warm on the skin of her neck. She exhaled, closing her eyes
when she felt his lips brush against her ear. Staring out at the
purple sky and the mountains over Albuquerque, Harper let her
adrenaline rush dictate her body. Swinging her legs, she brought
herself to sit backwards on the chopper, facing Levi, their chest
and lips inches apart.

Levi’s surprise took less than a second to
turn into delight. “What were you thinking about?”

“
Hm?”

“
What made you giggle like
that?” he asked softly, a smile on his face. Harper felt her heart
race when her palms flattened below his collar bones, Levi watching
her as she ran her hands down his chest and to his abs.

“
Being free. Living not
with my parents,” she said.

“
You wanna do that?” Levi
asked curiously, touching the sides of her thighs.

“
Obviously.”

His lips turned up. The answer seemed to
please him. “Then why don’t you? Move to L.A. Live with Zoe.”

Harper laughed. “I totally would.”

“
Fuck ‘would.’ Do
it.”

Harper chewed her lip, frowning. “I will.
Eventually. I just need to figure things out. I have a lot of
things left in New York. I have to go back there before I move
anywhere. At least finish high school.”

Perhaps it was her Upper East Side
upbringing, but Harper couldn’t reconcile the idea of a being a
high school dropout. Not unless she had an ultra-glamorous reason
like a few of her classmates – like getting signed to walk the
hottest five runways at Fashion Week or going to film some Academy
Award-winning movie. But she wasn’t five-foot-ten or an actress, so
an ultra-glam reason probably wouldn’t happen.

“
Since when did you care
about school? You’re about to miss the first week of junior year,”
Levi pointed out. He wasn’t wrong. If they stayed on their
schedule, Harper would miss the first four days of the school year.
But she didn’t anticipate it being a huge problem – she had missed
that much school before. Hudson had always found her a way out of
trouble, generally with doctor’s notes from various friends in the
medical field.

“
I thought you said I
should try to be good,” Harper murmured, cocking her head. Levi’s
brows knit tightly together. Gently removing her hands from his
chest, he nodded.

“
Yeah,” was all he said.
Harper frowned.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
Nothing.” He blinked,
looking up at her with bright, green eyes again. “Come on. Get on
the back of the bike so we can go back to the hotel.”

At the hotel, they finished a bottle of gin
straight. Levi was out of the sudden mood he’d fallen into and
Harper was glad for not only that, but the room that she had chosen
for them – it had only one king-size bed with a plush mattress that
Harper pulled Levi onto, running her hands up his chest so he lay
flat on his back.

Straddling him, she placed his hands on her
hips, sliding them up and under the hem of her T-shirt, feeling his
warm palms on her tingling skin, continuing to glide up on their
own to tug on the cups of her bra.

But suddenly, with a rumbling groan, Levi
snatched his hands back, pulling her off of him by the hips.

“
Goddamnit
,” was all he said before
bringing himself to a seat at the edge of the bed. Eyes wild with
confusion, Harper stared at him from behind, his broad shoulders
expanding as he leaned forward, his elbows on his bare
knees.

“
What the hell?” Harper
exhaled, pushing Levi off the bed from behind. Irritated, he stood
up and turned around to face her.

“
Calm down,” he said
through his teeth. “I told you. It’s all or nothing with
me.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
If I can’t have all of
it, I don’t want any. You’re going to be back in New York soon. I
want you more than anyone, Harper, but I’m not going to torture
myself by being with you for a week-and-a-half and then saying
goodbye.”

Harper blinked as her
tongue tried to form a coherent sentence. “But we’re having fun
right now. We like each other.”
Wow, that
sounded breathtakingly stupid. Alcohol – 1. Harper – 0.

“
We’re having fun, yes.
But let’s keep it platonic fun. We’ve been doing that for three
days now. I’m sure we can keep it up till New York.”

In her drunkenness, Harper agreed.
Outwardly, at least. If she had to seduce him, she would.

After sweating throughout the Rockies-Giants
game at Coors Field the next day, Harper hopped immediately into
the shower in their hotel room. After drying herself with her
towel, she’d left it in the bathroom, emerging from the bathroom in
just her boy shorts. His head shaking, Levi had watched her walk
around for a good two minutes before getting up and leaving the
room.

That night, he had gotten out of bed to
climb into hers, staying over the covers as he held her.

In Saint Louis, after watching her talk and
laugh with a mesmerized twenty-something about his chopper, Levi
had pulled Harper away by a handful of her shirt, both he and the
twenty-something staring at her bare, exposed shoulder as he
stretched her top.

They booked one bed at their hotel that
night. In the middle of the night, they both turned on their sides
at the same time, finding themselves awake, their faces just inches
apart. Flopping onto his back, Levi groaned – but only to return to
his side, his rough hand bringing Harper’s forehead to his lips so
he could give her a kiss despite his frown.

But on their last night before New York,
Harper found herself in an upscale Presidential suite in a swanky
downtown Chicago hotel, alone in their one bed. She stayed up all
night in hopes of hearing Levi come in from wherever he’d be. It
was around 9AM that she fell asleep, still alone in the big room.
She awoke at noon, to the alarm she had set in order to check
out.

Levi was in bed with her, holding her tight
against his chest. She felt him stir at the sound of the alarm.
Groggy, he had mumbled something in her ear and kissed her hair
before suddenly jerking awake.

“
Shit. Checkout,” he said
before popping out of bed and straight into the shower. While he
took forever in the bathroom, Harper sat at the edge of the bed,
confused, wondering if she had imagined the words he’d whispered in
his half-slumber – “I miss you.” They made either total sense or
none at all. She wasn’t sure which.

Not until New York, at least, when she
decided that they did in fact make complete sense, especially as
she watched Levi’s giant Ford pickup stick out like a sore thumb as
it drove down Fifth Avenue and forever away from her apartment.

Despite having been delivered quickly by Ron
to the comfort of her apartment, Harper couldn’t help feeling
panicked, out of control. If she had felt inexplicably tipsy
before, she felt flat-out drunk now.

She texted Zoe, even Gemma. They were both
working but she needed someone to come over – somebody to stop her
from seeing Levi. She had worked so hard to rid him from her
system. It had been no easy task considering the life they had
built together.

Harper had tried to finish high school. She
really had. At least she felt like she had. But she missed Los
Angeles way too much. She missed Zoe and even more, she missed
Levi. In hopes of forgetting him, she dragged Joie out to The Green
Room nearly every night. She tried coke and then some more,
convincing herself that it wasn’t for Levi.

By the end of junior year, it made sense for
her to drop out. She hadn’t passed more than two classes and she
would be forced to repeat the year if she didn’t leave.

So she began living with him at seventeen,
the day she’d moved to L.A. He had greeted her on the tarmac when
the private charter he had sent for her touched down. In just a
year, he had grown two inches in height. He was even broader. The
roman numerals on his arm had become a full sleeve. Before speaking
a single word, Levi had pulled Harper in for a kiss, his tongue
somehow numbing hers in a strange, pleasant way. Harper was fairly
certain that some form of addiction had started from the moment
they had locked lips.